Bright start for Portuguese online gambling market

Following the passage of legislation early in 2015 that legalized the provision of poker and casino games as well as sportsbettting via the Internet, the online gambling market in Portugal has reportedly generated aggregated gross revenues of around $92.1 million for the ten months since May of last year.

According to official figures released by the nation’s Gambling Inspection and Regulation Service, the six licensed online gaming operators in Portugal generated aggregated gross revenues of just over $34.7 million for the first three months of this year, which represented an increase of some 13.7% quarter-on-quarter.

The regulator revealed that approximately $19.5 million of this had come from online sportsbetting, which was a drop of 3.3% quarter-on-quarter and a 19.4% decline when compared with the third quarter of 2016, while the vertical had reported aggregated gross takings of around $64.5 million for the ten months since May of last year.

The legislation ratified in March of 2015 set a progressive tax rate of between 8% and 16% on any online sportsbetting revenues above about $33.6 million while the tariff for online casino and poker operators was established at from 15% to 30% on any takings exceeding approximately $11.2 million.